Reliably determining a set of items that are being transported from one place to another is a problem that exists in multiple fields and disciplines.
As one example, a consumer at a brick-and-mortar store location may place upwards of 30 items into a single shopping cart. When the consumer reaches a point of sale device, such as a cash register or a self-checkout device, the consumer must unload all of the items from the cart, place them on a sticky and/or germ-covered conveyor belt, manually scan each item or select each item from a menu. After paying for the items, the consumer or a clerk must place each item into a new bag and repack the shopping cart. When the consumer wants to buy a large item, they will typically need to find a sales clerk because the item cannot easily be transported to the point of sale or scanned. Finally, such a shopping experience can lead to errors, such as the clerk accidentally scanning an item twice or not scanning an item at all, that can lead to the consumer being charged too much or the store location giving away an item without payment.
As another example, a construction company may store goods such as lumber, nails, cement mix, or backhoes in warehouses. When moving to a new job site, the building company may need to transfer these goods to the new job site. Typical systems involve marking each item or container with a serial number, writing down each serial number, placing each serial number on a list, and shipping the goods with the list. When the goods arrive at the job site, a foreperson or inventory specialist may need to check the list to ensure that all goods were received. This causes delays and extra costs because a human being must manually determine whether goods were misplaced, modified, or stolen.
Moreover, while some computerized solutions exist for tracking items, they typically rely on large equipment that manually scans each item and requires confirmation from a user before taking any action with those items (such as purchase or movement of the items). This is inconvenient. Moreover, such systems typically require specialized equipment that is expensive, require manual entry of information about the items, cannot determine when a user has decided to not keep an item, cannot perform functions or initiate transactions for the user, and do not provide the interactivity necessary to ensure that a user fully understands when an item is ready to be purchased or checked out.
There is thus a need to address these and other issues. The present disclosure provides devices, methods, systems, and computer-readable media to solve these and other issues.